A New Start
by FuzyDr4G0NZ
Summary: The remaining Forerunners leave their home galaxy for a new, only to find somethings will never leave them.
1. Chapter 1

**A random idea that popped into my head. slight spoilers for Halo Silentium. updates will depend on feedback and whatnot.**

**Don't own anything.**

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**Lesser Ark**

Bornstellar watched from the citadel as the Lifeworkers were preparing to leave, they had seeded the Humans back onto Erde-Tyrene and the rest of the species of the galaxy back to their home worlds. He thought back to his last conversation to Riser, the little Florian that had been his friend. The humans and Forerunners had held a party to celebrate living and to remember the dead, it had been fun he thought to himself, seeing humans and Forerunners as brothers and sisters rather than old enemies.

Soft foot falls came from behind, he didn't need to turnaround to know who it was; the Lifeshaper Chant-to-Green. "So we leave than?" she asked as she drew near, Bornstellar nodded,

"Yes, as soon as your Lifeworkers are ready." He said, the remains of the other rates were already and waiting, a few hundred Builder vessels and Miner ships were waiting in orbit along with the remains of the Warrior caste on board a dozen warships; four Dreadnoughts, six Cruisers, two Dignity-Class escorts and the last remaining Fortress-Class vessel, _Horizon after War._

"Where will we go?" she asked, Bornstellar sighed and hung his head low,

"I don't know, somewhere far from here, somewhere were the Precursors haven't left their mark. Somewhere safe." He replied although he doubted such a place existed for Forerunners.

"I am sorry about your wife…" Chant began but Bornstellar cut her off, "She was _his _wife. Not mine. I am nothing but a copy, a Manipular in a Prometheans body." She said nothing else for a long while, they just stood side by side as they looked through the large window. Bornstellar couldn't help but wonder what the Humans that came here would be like; would they be like their ancient brethren? Or would they be different? Would they be at war or at peace? He didn't know and he never would.

When the Lifeworkers were done their ships rose up and joined the fleet in orbit of the Lesser Ark, Chant took the _Audacity _while Born took the _Horizon_. Born felt a great weight on his shoulders, the remains of the Forerunner Empire were looking to him for guidance, to help them see the start of a new Ecumene. As he looked over the status of the ships he noted that the Slip-Space budget was plentiful, more than enough to move the remains of their people away from their old home.

It would take many years even at full speed to leave what is believed to be the Precursors sphere of influence, so they rested, waited for the time when the Ships Ancilla would wake them.

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**Uncharted Space outside the Precursor Sphere of Influence**

**C.200 years after the Halo Event**

When he awoke Born quickly donned his armour and moved to the bridge as the rest of his Warriors awoke and took their replenishment drinks, he had his as he moved, he wanted to waste no time on little things. "What is the status of the fleet?" he asked as he entered the bridge, "All ships are fully operational" the _Horizon_ reported, that was good he thought.

"Where are we?" he asked, "two hundred and eighty million light years outside of the Precursor's sphere of influence. We have arrived at a galaxy not too dissimilar to our own." The _Horizon _responded.

The fleet exited Slip-space soon after and found themselves in a system containing two habitable planets, four rocky planets and two large gas giants, "Have the fleet move to the garden world closest to the star, that's where we will begin to rebuild our civilisation." He ordered. It would take them decades to fully inhabit the planet along with its companion world and then centuries to start expanding outwards again, but they had time, there were no threats, no need to go expanding as quickly as possible.

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**New Forerunner Capital**

**C.600 years after the Halo event**

Over the centuries of rebuilding a new Council had been selected, there was hardly any discrimination between rates and their population was booming. Bornstellar had even married Chant-to-Green and started a family.

They started to build new ships and were slowly starting to expand out into the new galaxy, Born was glad to have peace as he stood on balcony of his home that he had built for him and Chant, the memories of the Didact were still with him but he was himself again, not the ancient Warrior that defeated the Humans at Charum Hakkor but his own person, although many still referred to him as the Didact or IsoDidact when being formal.

He watched one of his aids teach his children what he could about the history of the Forerunners, without the Domain they would have to find a new away to store their history or what remained of it.

One of his Warriors came up to him, "Didact, one of our Ancilla's has intercepted an emergency signal from life native to this galaxy, you may wish to see this yourself," he said, Born turned away and looked at the Warrior before nodding, "Show me," was the simple order as he walked over to a console built into his house.

The screen came to life and played the signal, it was low resolution and full of static, weapons fire drowned out nearly all other noise on the transmission. The view was horribly unstable and kept moving side to side; like someone was running. Some weapons fire died down allowing the person to speak,

"_Mayday, Mayday this is Lieutenant Shepard to all Alliance Forces in the area, Elysium is under attack by- rate and slave- we need…" _the signal shut off, completely dead. Born watched it all and he watched it again to make sure he wasn't seeing things; a Human had sent the transmission, Humans were under attack and were losing ground to _slavers_. The word felt odd to him, Forerunners didn't have word for it, they didn't have slaves nor did they allow anyone in their home galaxy to utilise slaves.

"Didact?" his Warrior questioned, snapping Born back into action, "Have the _Horizon_ ready to go when I get there, we leave immediately." He ordered and the Warrior snapped off a salute and went off to get readythe _Horizon_.

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**Uncharted System**

**C.600 years after the Halo event**

Chant-to-Green worked nearly day and night, burying herself in her duties as the Lifeshaper to escape the guilt of leaving the Librarian. The Librarian had ordered her to go, to save the Humans but she felt like she had abandoned her on the Human Homeworld.

The building in which she was working in was open, no doors or windows just open air all the way through. She had dismissed all her aids back to the Capital as they weren't needed on the planet.

She was busy studying one of creatures that inhabited the garden world and had ignored several attempts from her Ancilla that was trying to get her attention; it was only when she heard footsteps and weapons getting ready to fire that she stopped. "Send out a communication to the Capital, make sure my husband responds." She ordered her Ancilla, "Already done Lifeshaper," it responded.

Slowly she turned round to face the apparent threat; a group of six bird-like aliens in very primitive combat skin with equally primitive weapons were waiting for her to make a move, she made none.

"Commander we've made contact, one alien. Its first contact sir," one of the creatures said into a communications device, Forerunner technology was very good at translating alien languages and it was apparent here was no different.

"_Well than, keep it there until we can bring in a diplomatic team, no hostile moves or the Council will have our heads if we start another Shanxi." _The alien's leader responded, Chant was glad that they weren't going to shoot her, not that the weapons were registered as dangerous by her armour.

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**So? review and depending on feedback i might update it sooner than some other stories of mine. anyway i'm going to carry on writing my other stories now.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N; Wow, just wow, the feed back for this was incredible, i haven't seen anything negative in the reviews and i just had to get this chapter up for you guys. Enjoy!**

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**Elysium-2176**

Lieutenant John Shepard was having one of the worst days in his life, almost as bad as the raid on Mindoir when he was sixteen. Pirates and Slavers had come to Elysium in force with the single goal of wiping out the human presence in the system, this would cause many people to fall back out of the Verge, leaving it open for Batarian colonisation. At least that's what John thought the raid was about, he wouldn't know for certain until afterwards, if he survived that long.

Pirate forces had just broken through the colonies line of defence, he was the only person near enough to seal the gap, but he doubted his ability to hold off the enemy single handily. He set up traps and managed to kill of a dozen squads of Batarian forces that tried to break through only to be torn apart by his trusty sniper rifle or one of the ingenious traps he planted.

After several hours by himself with no support he was beginning to tire, they were sending in more and more troops at a time, trying to flush him out and mow him down. On a deserted street using the remains of a building wall as cover was where he made his stand, he had planted a dozen fougasses between him and the approaching batarian battalion; it would do little but slow them down.

He aimed for anyone that looked like a leader, without their leader the troops would be much less effective. Taking them out one by one and then a few dozen here and there from the fougasses cut their number down by a fraction, there were simply too many of them and they would trample over his position within a few minutes, rounds from Batarian rifles hit the dirt and debris all around him, throwing up dirt and dust. That was when he heard it, it was quite at first but steadily grew louder and louder, an engine, not one he recognised. Whatever it was, it was getting close.

The machine flew overhead and fired some sort of weapons that turned the rest of the battalion into ash; some however survived and were running towards him in blind panic. He heard the sounds of footsteps, lots of them; large heavy foot falls were approaching quickly. It sounded like a heard of buffalo's stampeding across the land.

Hundreds, if not thousands of Warriors rushed towards him, they were huge and dressed in grey armour with sharp angles and gold visors, they moved faster than he would have thought normal for a being their size. The leading figures shot at the retreating Batarians causing the four eyed aliens to fall, the blue and orange bolts of energy tore the retreating aliens apart.

The machine that had flown overhead landed in the distance and kept firing at Batarians out of Johns view, he looked round and saw the large aliens were ignoring him; they just ran past him and chased after retreating forces.

"_Anyone else seeing these things?"_

"_What the…?" _

"_Shepard? Can you see these things?" _multiple voices came over the radio, one voice however was speaking to him, "Sir, what the hell is going on?" John asked as more of the soldiers ran past without a second glance.

"_Unknown, whoever they are, they don't like the Batarians any more than we do,"_ the Major reported, "No shit Major, I just saw a thousand of them wipe out a battalion that was bearing down on my position."

"_Understood Lieutenant, hold tight and we'll get you out of there," _John was about to respond when he heard heavy footsteps _right_ behind him, large metallic sounding thuds. He dared not turn just in case whatever it was decided to kill him too.

The figure stopped next to him, less than two feet away and the being was _huge_, and it was over twice John's height and then some. It was fully armoured like the rest but the armour was different, large pieces of metal floated around its shoulders and a large blue cape with gold trimmings flowed from its broad shoulders. Its hands were bigger than Johns face, long and pointed fingers, six on each hand; John couldn't supress the shiver that ran down his back.

The being looked down at him and nodded, a brief understanding crossed with it, it was as if it was saying it would always have his back, never let him down.

* * *

**C.600 years after the Halo event**

**Unregistered planet**

Chant watched the young avian creatures as they settled in, they were tense but not overly hostile. As a Lifeworker she was thrilled at the prospect of meeting a new race, as the Lifeshaper however she had a duty to communicate with these new creatures. Of course it was hard to talk peacefully when covered head to toe in armour.

She took a step forward and had her armour fell away, curling itself into a small egg nearby, ready to jump back on at a moment's notice. The alien in charge took a step back as she did this while his subordinates trained their weapons on her, now without her armour she was at risk.

She walked forward slowly, carefully to the leader of the group who was slack jawed, for what reason she did not yet know, but she did plan on finding out soon. "Fear not young one, I am Forerunner, I mean you no harm. What is your name young one?" she asked, she watched as it tried to speak but ultimately said nothing, his mouth moving but no words. Eventually he found his voice, "H-how do know Turian?" he asked, the corner of her lips pulled up slightly as she smiled.

"I don't. Forerunner technology takes what I say and project it to you in a manner you understand. Now, what is your name?" she asked again, she leant down slightly to remove most of the height difference between them. "Major Adrien Victus, 9th Platoon of the Turian Hierarchy. And you are?" he asked, "I am known by many as the Lifeshaper. That is all you will know me by as well. How old are you Adrien?" She asked. She was simply stalling for time, waiting for her husband to arrive, no doubt with his finest Warriors ready to fight.

"Old enough to know you're stalling for time," he replied, seeing through her simple plan, "Very good, not many races see the truth behind a veil of lies," she said, the way she talked to him made him uncomfortable, like an Asari Matriarch except really old, or older than the thousand or so years they live up to.

"Yeah well you remind me of the…" he was cut off when the ship Commander called to him, _"Major, you're to return to the ship, we've intercepted a distress call from an Alliance colony and we're needed to help clean up. No arguments Major." _ The Major hesitated before replying with a simple 'Yes sir' and they moved out, why though they were just leaving her here she couldn't guess. Did they think she would just wait for them to return? It was obvious that they didn't want to leave her there so why did they?

* * *

**C.600 years after the Halo event**

Born watched the Human next to him, the human had held off by himself against numerically superior foe and yet he had never retreated, the sign of a good soldier willing to die for the cause. The human however was not like the ones he had seen before, Chakas and Riser had been dark skinned and fairly small. While this human wasn't exactly big, still smaller than a first form Warrior, he was bigger than Chakas was.

The human had pale skin and short dark hair; didn't the humans have long hair in the military? The Didact's memories of the war confirmed his thoughts but yet this one had short hair, and the skin tone he had never seen on a human, he had seen some with a pinkish hue to their dark skin but none were actually _white_. The mysteries of evolution he guessed, why would a Human that evolved in a different galaxy be the same as the ones from his home galaxy?

A Promethean walked up to him, she was smaller than him but still no less impressive in size. She came to relay certain information and judging from the way she held herself it wasn't all that good. "Didact, we have captured several of the enemy troops. They seemed to surrender quickly when faced with superior numbers and strength." She said, but that was not all, "The _Horizon'_s Ancilla has procured samples of an unknown element we have not seen before, it says the properties are something the Builders may wish to study." She continued.

"Very good, tell the _Horizon_ to collect as many samples as possible and have all prisoners taken up to one of the Cruisers," Born replied, he noticed the human had turned to look at him again, his gaze full of curiosity. Born noticed the Promethean was still there, she had more to say but was hesitant to speak, "Is there something else, Glory?" he asked,

"Yes, Didact, we received an emergency communication through the Capital… it's the Lifeshaper, unknown aliens have landed on the planet she was working on," she said, Born clenched his massive hands in an attempt to quell the infamous rage of the Didact that was burning through him, "Have all Warriors fall back to their ships, forget the samples of this element, we leave immediately." He said his voice strained to hide the anger at these aliens, at the ones for attacking the Humans and the ones holding his wife hostage.

Glory bowed her head slightly and started to have the Warriors pack up and leave, some carried Batarians, some unconscious, some kicking and screaming at their captors. Born took one last look at the human, his armour running more scans on him before he turned away and headed back to his Seeker that would take him back to the _Horizon_.

Upon arriving on the bridge he took control and orchestrated the fleet out of the debris field of enemy ships, they had been easy to defeat, they had lacked any decent weaponry and shields, leading to the easy victory for the Forerunner Warriors. "Didact, multiple vessels are approaching at super-luminal speeds through real-space." The ships Ancilla reported as the last Warriors arrived on board, "Have all ships jump out-system, only the _Horizon _will meet with my wife, all others will report to the Capital immediately." He ordered.

The massive 100 kilometre long Fortress-Class vessel moved up-star before jumping away while the rest simply jumped out of the system from orbit, minute's later dozens of ships belonging to the Human System Alliance dropped out of FTL and began to clean up the mess left by the Forerunner fleet along with trying to figure out what happened.

Hours later Turian and Council ships arrived in system to help with aid for the citizens of Elysium that were left with nothing after the batarian attack, despite survivors accounts of the battle the Council refused to believe a super advanced race rescued the Humans on the planet only to disappear soon after.

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When the Council diplomatic team arrived at the planet the Turians reported first contact they found it completely deserted. In fact there was no evidence of any race ever inhabiting the planet; the building the Turians had said was there was in fact gone.

Scouts are sent into nearby systems to try finding this new race but they turn up nothing and after several months they stop looking.

This left the Forerunners time to plan their attack the Batarians, a horrible race that endorsed slavery and got away with. Born had the Miners retrieve some of this new element while the Builders studied it, finding uses for it and all there was to know about it. Chant-to-Green was tasked by the New Council to study this new group of humans; how they got here, why they were different from their kin in the home galaxy and most importantly _why_ they were in the new galaxy.

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**A/N; so, Review to tell me what you think, tell me what you like most about it. i would have had this chapter up yesterday but i had to work over Easter so i didn't get a chance.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Location- Unknown**

**Date-Unknown**

A Batarian feared very few things in the galaxy, having their eyes gauged out before death was one of them; another was being on the wrong end of Dreadnought scale gun. But as Charn hung in this room, completely alone and left in darkness that threatened to devour him should the sole light in the room fade—the light that was currently suspending him in mid-air.

He tried to remember what had happened and how he had gotten himself into this mess, they had been winning, Elysium, the human capital in the verge was going to be burnt to the ground before the pathetic whelps could do anything about it. Just as the Batarian forces were making the final push an ear splitting roar filled the air, than thousands of massive creatures started tearing through the Batarian ranks, their shields offered no protection, their armour even less.

He had been captured by one of the new aliens, it had been easily twice the size of a Krogan, its massive hands dwarfed his head and he had been quite literally plucked out of battle. After that though, he remembered nothing.

A small drone of some sort came up next him as he hung limply in the air, its single blue eye looking at him intently; it turned to face the darkness just as the sound of large, menacing footsteps echoed through the darkness. A figure, far bigger than him, approached, he couldn't see any details, just lights that ran throughout the figure.

It came to a stop less than a meter away, he looked up at the being with a look of pure hatred, it waved a hand and the field restraining him collapsed, causing him to fall to the floor. The light however remained, for which he was thankful.

"You'll pay for this! The Hegemony will blast your foul race into mud of your home-world!" Charn spat out at the massive figure, suddenly the room burst with light, the source apparently from everywhere as there were no shadows cast. The figure was almost disgustingly human, although this one seemed almost uglier, its face was tight and drawn back, its grey eyes were deep set and a pale fur grew on the back of its head. It wore the armour of the creatures that attacked him and the other Batarian and pirate forces.

"The Forerunner home-world was rendered uninhabitable tens of millions of years ago, during our early attempts at astro-engineering. But yours however, is still habitable, but for how much longer? Before I send my fleet to turn the surface to ash and remove your race from the galaxy, only leaving the barest amount needed for your civilisation to grow again, from scratch." The creature spoke with a voice so old it unnerved Charn, but what it had said was impossible, they would have to deal with the Citadel Council if they tried to attempt such a war against the Hegemony. Not only that but 'millions of years ago'? That would mean this 'Forerunner' race was so old it predated the Prothean's, but if they did, why weren't they the first species discovered in the galaxy and not now, after two thousand years?

"You're lying; no race is that old,"

"How old are you? Hmm? Less than thirty standard years, I am over six hundred myself. The memories of the Didact I carry span eleven _thousand_ years. My civilisation has sailed the stars for longer than yours has known fire!" It growled out,

Charn simply spat at the creature, the being growled and clenched its fist but did nothing,

"You will tell me everything I wish to know, if not, I will have your memories removed forcibly and dispose of you,"

Charn said nothing but did try to escape past the creature, it simply waved a hand and Charn was sent flying across the room before it lifted its huge arm and Charn was pulled of the floor and he was once again hanging in the air at the whim of another.

"First what is your name?" it growled out deeply, the unrestrained anger in its voice caused Charn's insides to grow cold, "Charn! My name is Charn!" he yelled quickly, although the pressure he felt all around him made it hard to speak,

"Charn. A simple name for a simple race. What was the purpose of the attack on the human colony?"

"To wipe it out, without it other human colonies in the Verge would recede, allowing it to be colonised by its rightful owner, the Hegemony!" Charn said forcibly, the pressure that surrounded him increased almost twofold,

"Humans are our kin! If these planets belong to them than _they belong to them_, not some poor deluded fool that thinks he is more superior," the creature barked at him,

"W—what?" Charn stumbled after hearing the creature; they were related to the humans? "this… conversation is over," it turned to the drone that was still floating nearby, "extract any useful information, than dispose of it." The giant said before lowering his arm and allowing Charn to fall to the floor again and leaving him all alone with the drone.

No one heard his screams.

XX

**Serpent nebula, Citadel tower, Council meeting chambers,**

**2176- Human calendar,**

The Citadel council dealt with things ranging from mundane everyday situations to new and unforeseen events. It was during one of the boring and mundane events, the Volus once again preaching for a spot on the Council, that a Salarian wearing white and red armour came rushing in,

"Councillors! Have urgent matter to discuss, very important, top secret," he said as he approached the Council, normally someone would be pushed back away from the meeting between the Volus ambassador and the Council, but the Salarian, part of the STG simply walked in.

The Council dismissed the Volus ambassador and the STG operative quickly followed them to a secure room where no one would ever hear what was said, "What is it?" Sparatus, the Turian Councillor asked, no point beating round the bush,

"Have lost contact with everything inside Batarian space," the operative replied nervously, this had never happened before and reporting it to the Council was not a task he would have liked,

"So? It's probably just a communications error, it should reset itself shortly," the Turian replied angrily, he was obviously annoyed,

"No, not that, lost contact with _everything_, all at the same time, all across Batarian space. We tried to send some drones and ships but they didn't send anything back, never came back." The operative replied,

"Do you think the Batarians found them?" Tevos, the Asari Councilwoman asked, the Salarian Councillor shook his head,

"Not possible, we would know if any of the probes or bugs was compromised," he replied,

They spent hours on trying to figure out the reason behind it, and trying not to panic. More probes were sent in via a convoy from the Terminus systems but they yielded nothing, just like everything else.

It would be months before they get anything through, but what they would shake them to their very core. It would shake the very _galaxy_ to its core, wondering who could commit such an act.


	4. Chapter 4

Bornstellar left the Batarian alone with the monitor, his memories would be extracted and any valuable information would be used, the rest would be discarded. He walked into a different cell, this one contained a human, a survivor from the attack that had been rescued but she was in poor condition, near death when she had been found. One of his Prometheans took her and brought her back with them, she was a soldier, a warrior. He nearly laughed when he heard that, after all the Humans the Didact had fought had been male, they didn't allow females into their ranks of soldiers, these humans however did.

The human was awake and panicking—or so his readouts said, she was in far better health now than she had been, that was good. He walked into the holding area where she was suspended, the Lifeworkers had done their job and healed her, now he would take her in and find out as much as she knew, although he planned on being nicer to her than he had been to the Batarian. The human had dark red hair, a feature he hadn't seen on one before. She studied him as he walked in with emerald green eyes, her face showed a slight mixture of shock and fear but it quickly faded into an emotionless blank state—one that would have made a Promethean look emotional.

Born deactivated the constraint field slowly and allowed the human to be lowered to the ground safely, she kept staring at him, wondering what he'd do next.

"What is your name human?" he asked, he knew humans had similar feelings on names as Forerunners did, they were special, friends and family would call you one name—a pet name, while others would call you by a formal name, like Riser. Born was happy to note the little Florian was considered a friend, although he was probably old now, if not dead.

"Corporal Elizabeth Hopkins. You?" she said after a brief hesitation, her face still blank. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards to form a smile, "I am Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting. However many call me Didact, but please just call me Bornstellar." He replied, Elizabeth raised her right eyebrow in response but said nothing.

"The Lifeworkers healed you in the days after your rescue; however I cannot allow you back to your civilisation, not yet." She seemed almost distraught at the news, although her face remained passive her heart rate picked up and her body secreted several chemicals as she became more stressed at the news.

"Why not?" she demanded to know, Born found it slightly amusing to see a human demand anything of a Forerunner but he wasn't surprised. "Everyone thinks you are dead. No one knows you are here, no one knows _we_ are here. Forerunners have not yet engaged in contact with your… Citadel Council, and nor will we for some time." Born replied, he kneeled down so he was almost eye level with her, something Riser had taught him was that humans preferred to make eye contact while talking, so did Forerunners but with humans he had to lower himself, after all he was larger than any of them.

"Where are we?" she asked eventually, Born rose and motioned her to follow, she did. He led her through the facility where he had put everyone that was taken. She did little to hide her awe and wonder as she past many things that caught her attention, mainly the various monitors that floated about or the doors as they simply dissolved out the way and reformed behind them.

Soon he led her to a balcony that overlooked the Capital, the city, the planet was always in motion, never ceasing. The star at the heart of the system was slowly falling behind the horizon, turning the sky a beautiful purple, a nearby nebula was lit up the sky with even more colour. The sight caused Elizabeth's breath to catch, an odd human trait he had noticed during his travels with Chakas and Riser. The Council building was visible from their current position, it hung hundreds of meters in the air, suspended by anti-gravity generators, an ocean had been lifted up and its contents now lived near his personal estate while Lifeworkers studied the creatures that inhabited it.

"Whoa, that's… incredible," Elizabeth whispered, and it was, even for Bornstellar.

"We are at the Capital, one of only a few planets my people inhabit now." Born said.

"What does your name mean?" Born asked, trying to make her more comfortable and to shift the topic, "My mum used to tell me it meant 'God's promise'" she answered without thinking, although she immediately flushed with embarrassment at letting her training slip.

"God?" Born questioned, she shrugged before replying, "Yeah, according to Christianity God created the heavens and the Earth in seven days and created humans in his image," she said the words but did not believe them.

"I can assure you no god created humans, and certainly not in his image." Born said, perhaps revealing too much too soon. Before Elizabeth could say anything, and she wanted to, a small _Falco-_class shuttle approached, catching her attention.

"The answers you seek will be answered, I promise you that. However it will take time. For now I request you travel with me, we have much to discuss." Born said, motioning to the shuttle. Elizabeth was hesitant but she got on and took a seat that made her look even smaller, as he entered, the shuttle took off towards its destination.

"Where's the pilot?" she asked, he gave her a questioning glance and she made rudimentary motions with her hands, "Ya know, the guy who fly's the shuttle?" She added.

"My Ancilla controls the shuttle, there is no need for a physical pilot." He replied, she seemed momentarily shocked and then scared.

"You mean an A.I don't you? A.I's are dangerous, they'll want to wipe out all organic's in the galaxy, just look what happened to the Quarians and the Geth!" she hissed at him, his Ancilla made a remark about its 'total plan for the destruction of life'. Bornstellar was not impressed by either party, this human; this little creature dared insult Forerunner technology. Meanwhile his Ancilla seemed to have forgotten all that had happened during the war with the Flood and how it had perverted Forerunner's own Ancilla's and Monitors against their creators.

"You should only speak of things based on fact, not the tales of idiots." Born replied, he knew of the 'Quarian' and 'Geth' war, it was just a small bit of information that had been gathered from those he had tasked with getting information. Before she could utter another word and argue with him he simply raised a hand and signalled that it was over.

* * *

Elizabeth watched the massive man, Bornstellar he had called himself, as he signalled an end to the conversation; she was both scared and angry. She was in a flying vehicle, an alien vehicle that was being controlled by an A.I and she had no way of escape. She was in unfamiliar land and had no way of escaping the planet and getting back to Council or Alliance space.

She was a prisoner no matter how you looked at it, and she was forced to go along with the freakishly human like giant. Although she had to admit the things she saw were beautiful beyond measure.

When the shuttle landed and she got out two round drones followed by several different drones that had three arms attached, they took up an escort position next to her and Bornstellar. He seemed perfectly at ease with their presence and so she forced herself to relax slightly, although she never dropped her guard. They had landed at the large building she had seen floating from a distance, it turned out the large dome shaped building was hollow and contained a massive building at its centre, it was all perfectly symmetrical and everything was either smoother than a babies back side or sharp and angular, one design often flowed perfectly into another. The entrance they approached—was just one of many entrances she noticed had twelve blue and purple crystals that formed delicate symbols.

"They represent the twelve systems early Forerunners inhabited very long ago; the crystals are from the ships that carried us to this new home. It is our way of remembering our ancestry, although much of that has been lost." Bornstellar said as he noticed she was looking at the crystals.

"You mean this isn't your home-world?" he shook his head but said nothing else on the matter, leaving her with more questions.

She was lead through a large assortment of corridors and hallways, eventually she was led into what appeared to be a viewing box, like from one of the old Earth theatres. As she stepped on the platform it rose high up into a massive amphitheatre that reminded her of something she had seen in an old science fiction vid. There were more stands just like hers, in total there had to have been five hundred separate ones. Each was filled by a single 'Forerunner', she noted all of them wore different armour, some wore the same but she took note of five or six different types, some much more elaborate than the others.

The centre of the room was a platform that had five separate highlighted circles that had different symbols inside of them, around a holographic map of the galaxy that was far more detailed than any hologram in Council space. "You're in the Council Chambers, the first none Forerunner to hold the honour. Here you will be called upon to testify about what happened on your planet. I must leave you alone here, I am needed down there, my place on the Council." Born said quietly, she had forgotten about the giant being. He disappeared before she had turned around and when she looked back at the centre of the room he was stood in one of the circles, his face obscured by a helmet of some sort.

Shortly after more figures arrived on the centre stage and took their place, Elizabeth knew that what happened here today, what she said to these people, would change the fate of the galaxy forever. And hopefully it would be for the good.


	5. Chapter 5

**AN- So, five chapters- I didn't expect this story to be so well received, so thank you all for liking and reviewing, and of course all of the favorites. here's chapter five- read it, review and most importantly- enjoy!**

**Disclaimer- i don't own either franchise. ****  
**

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**Council Chamber, Capital, Capital System, six hundred years after the firing of the Halos**

Born stood at his place in the council chambers, next to his wife and the new Master builder, the galaxy was displayed before him and the entire council. The meeting was a trial, the trial of the captured Batarians for their actions on the human colony. One of the only witnesses gathered whose evidence was eligible in the hearing was the human he had escorted here personally; she was certainly different from Riser and Chakas.

The trial started in a manner similar to Faber's own trial centuries ago, only this time no Halo's and rampant Ancilla's attacked the Capital halfway through the opening ceremony. The captured Batarians were brought forth in front of the Council, stuck within containment fields and stripped of everything except the barest of cloth that covered their anatomy. Born walked forward, towards those that were on trial—a dozen Batarians that had a mixed look of pure, unadulterated hatred and a large dose of primal fear, when he stood in front of them he made a sweeping motion with his arm and spoke.

"The Mantle of Responsibility shelters all. That is the reason why these… _creatures_ are still alive, and the only reason." He started; he walked around the platform, around the prisoners on trial. "We came here, to this galaxy, to start anew, to rebuild our entire civilisation outside of Precursor influence, away from their twisted and perverted way of insuring dominance. And yet here, millions of light years away from our ancient home, we still encounter their rotten touch. Those brought before you today are accused of the sin of attempting to enslave another species and to dominate them, cruelly, without wisdom." Born kept pacing around the Batarians like a predator circling its prey. He could hear the disapproving voices of the Council, they were not happy with this, some probably weren't happy with him for getting them involved with the affairs of this galaxy so quickly after their arrival while others, namely his Warriors, were unhappy that these atrocities had been allowed to happen unabated by the species of this galaxy.

"The Mantle shelters all, yes. But you should let them have their say, allow them the chance to defend their actions. We already made the mistake of acting without all the available accounts, and that's what led us here." Chant said, stepping forward from here place to stop his pacing. She never did like it when he paced around. Murmurs of agreement rippled through out the council chambers and Born saw the human, Elizabeth, shake her head in a silent fury. These Batarians had tried to wipe her people off of that planet and either make the inhabitant's slaves or kill them; she didn't believe they deserved such mercy.

"Well then, speak your case." Born said, waving a hand at one of the Batarians, it dropped to the floor and struggled to rise, when it did it spoke with the same amount of venom as all the others had.

"You'll pay for this! The Council won't let you get away with attacking a member race and neither will the Hegemony let you get away with this!"

Born reactivated the constraint field and spoke to the council members, "And so you see, they think themselves superior, think themselves above us. Us! Forerunners! We defeated the Precursors! We wiped out the Flood! The most difficult challenge these Batarians have overcome was to crawl out of oceans and into the mud in which they fester!"

"Didact," the Master Builder warned, his voice much softer than Bornstellar's own, but it was just as firm and just as powerful. "What of the… _witness_ you brought with you, allow her to have her say before we show the council what your interrogations uncovered."

Born bowed his head slightly as a sign of acknowledgment and the humans platform moved from the wall and lowered down onto the main platform, with the prisoners and current speakers of the council.

The human looked frightened but she masked it well, when the council saw her, the entire chamber erupted into shouts, most of them demanding to know why a human was here, in another galaxy.

"Quiet!" the First Councillor spoke for the first time; he stepped forward and shot a glance at Bornstellar, the council members quietened as he looked at the human and the Batarians.

"Bornstellar, you will tell us more about the human later, but not now." The first councillor looked at the human and spoke to her, "Human, tell us everything you know about these creatures, seeing as they simply wish to try and scare us into submission, even when they are the ones on trial."

Elizabeth nodded, her jaw worked but no words came out at first, she was scared, she was confused, she didn't know what to say to these people, these Forerunners.

"They're Batarians; they've been part of the Citadel Council for around eight hundred years. They don't like humans because they feel like we're nothing but pets to the council. They have openly attacked us multiple times—the raid on Elysium was just the latest attack, a few years ago their government sponsored an attack on the colony of Mindoir, a small farming colony whose population mainly consisted of large families, children were slaughtered in the streets for amusement, women were raped in front of their family. By the time the Alliance got there… the Batarians had left and taken most of the survivors and left the dead were they lay." She spoke quietly; her voice was unmistakably haunted by memories.

"And yet, you survived?" the first councillor said accusingly, like she was the one on trial, he had picked up the hints as well. Elizabeth said nothing but she shot a glance at the first councillor and then Born.

"That is not relevant councillor, she survived, humans all ways survive." Bornstellar said before Elizabeth could reply, the fact that she survived and was still haunted by memories was enough torture; she didn't need to feel guilty about surviving as well.

Chant-to-Green took place next to Elizabeth and placed a hand on the humans shoulder and spoke to her quietly, the human was done speaking and the Council had heard enough form her. Bornstellar looked to his wife and gave a small nod as she took the human out of the council chambers. A few minutes later she returned and gave him a look that answered his unasked question.

Guards took the prisoners out as well, they had made their case and revealed nothing more, and it was all the same superior comments that were useless and meaningless. The council made a unanimous vote, a course of action that would end any threat caused by the Hegemony, not to the Forerunners, but to the galaxy. They couldn't do anything that would reveal Forerunners to the galaxy but they couldn't just allow the Batarians to get away with their actions. No. The plan was to allow the Hegemony to destroy itself and the Forerunners would clean up afterwards. Drones and ships would blockade any 'Mass Relay's' and prevent outside sources from interfering; cut off from the galaxy the Hegemony would slowly crumble, their oppressed nations would rebel and then Forerunners will dismantle any form of civilisation and make the weakened Batarians start from scratch.

Of course there was still the problem of the Batarians not in Hegemony space, of course they would be dealt with; the criminal underworld of this galaxy was highly unstable, all Bornstellar had to do is create something that would cause the Batarians to either flee back to their home space or come willingly, create fake orders from the top levels of government, not a hard thing to do.

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Elizabeth was escorted out of the chambers by the female and then taken by shuttle to a new place by the floating ocean. The estate was massive, it was easily the size of Arcturus station, hundreds of little drones floated about the place while Forerunners moved around, going about their business.

She was taken to an open room on one of the uppermost floors, one thing she noticed was the lack of a bed but Elizabeth could still tell the room was very well decorated, despite the completely alien features. A balcony allowed her to see much of the estate and surrounding city; massive towers floated above the ground and reached up into the clouds, lights from craft moving from place to place made the dark sky look like it was full of fireflies, combined with the dark purple sky and untainted view into space made her feel at peace, like she didn't have a worry in the world.

Of course she was part of the System Alliance infantry, some of the most renowned ground troops in the galaxy. She kept an ear open and an eye on her behind as she rested, she wouldn't let her guard down around these people, no matter what.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N; So finally an update! yay, go me. The reason behind the slow updates for everything is quite simple, my laptop, the piece of equipment i keep all my work on... it... it died, a two weeks ago now and to get it repaired i need around £80, and i don't have that money. so, all the work i did for chapters is now pretty much gone. so updates from now on are whenever i can, i mean i lost alot of work when my laptop died so i didn't really wan't to redo all of it.**

**But here we are with an update so i guess we can't really complain now can we?**

** Also, why does everybody think i'm committing genocide on the batarians? i'm not, seriously read the last chapter and you'll see that.**

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**Forerunner Capital, Capital system, 600 years post Halo activation**

Elizabeth stood by the balcony watching the Forerunners go about their business; dozens of drones flew about completely unhindered and almost completely ignored by the Forerunners. She frowned at the scene, she had always been told A.I's were bad; they couldn't be trusted and would kill all sentient creatures of given half the chance, but here was evidence on the contrary, they were treated like servants and yet they didn't seem to care. She was so confused by everything she had seen since being brought out of the prison by Bornstellar.

A Forerunner in combat armour entered the room behind her; he was only slightly taller than her but looked more… sturdy, more powerful, Elizabeth noticed that he didn't wield a weapon of any sort, at least she couldn't see one.

"Human, your presence is required by the Lifeshaper." He said. He stood to one side of the door to allow her to walk through. Elizabeth sighed to herself as she moved from the balcony and past the guard into the hallway.

"Okay, where to?" She asked the guard who escorted her through the house, he led her into what appeared to be a large dining room, unlike the one her grandparents had it wasn't lavishly decorated and extraordinarily fancy but at the same time, it was. She put it down to the alien aesthetic tastes.

Sat at what she barely recognised as a table she saw the same woman who had taken her out of the building and also sat at the table was Bornstellar, his large imposing figure dominated the room, surprisingly though he looked more peaceful now than when he did the first time they had met.

"Lifeshaper," the guard said as he walked into the room, immediately all noise in the room halted, the Lifeshaper stood up and dismissed the guard. The woman was over twice Elizabeth's height and far thinner than she would have thought natural, but then again these people weren't exactly abiding by the normal standards of the galaxy as she knew it anyway.

"Please sit, I believe you must be hungry, no?" she said in a soft voice full of warmth and in an almost motherly tone. Elizabeth took a place at the strange looking table next to two Forerunners that were closer to her in size then the rest.

Soon after several of the eyeball like drones came out and served food around the table, she noted there were two types of meals, one for the larger and more statuesque Forerunners and one for the smaller and less powerfully built ones. She was served the same meal as the warriors, a mixture of strange looing stuff that she guessed was food, and the strange purple mix looked to be mainly plants and vegetables but no meat.

"Is something wrong?" Bornstellar asked her when he noticed her starring at her food.

"No, no it's just… purple; I've never eaten purple food before, except that one time during training and that didn't end so well." She replied.

"It's the meal suited for warriors, and as a warrior yourself I figured it would be an insult if you were given something else." Bornstellar replied.

She went to try and eat some but she quickly noticed her lack of cutlery, looking round she saw the Forerunners using something to eat with, but she couldn't see it around her place.

"Umm, I don't have a umm fork or anything." She said awkwardly, the two Forerunners sat next to her looked at her with amusement on their faces before one of them made a slight motion with her sixth finger, causing an eating utensil to appear in front of her; it simply floated there until she grabbed it.

"Ha, that was pretty cool, if a little bit creepy." She said as she tried to get used to the alien utensil. She failed to notice the range of emotions across the table, the older warriors looked back and forth between Born and Elizabeth in an attempt to get the head of the able to in act some manners on the human but the stern glances from both Born and Chant prevented any form of outcry.

The meal was eaten in silence, unlike the meals she remembered with her grandparents; they were always loud and full of cheer, talking, joking and all sorts of mayhem. The food she ate was pretty bland flavour wise but it was edible, which was the main thing she guessed.

"Elizabeth," Bornstellar started after the meals were tidied away by the little drone things, "tell us about your people, what are they like," he asked her, all the Forerunners at the table looked at her expectantly, she fidgeted nervously before replying.

"Oh uh, well we're humans, mammals, omnivores, have a penchant for getting into trouble. Nearly every decade another fight breaks out somewhere over something really stupid. Recently it's been the Batarians, trying to stop them. Previously it was the Turians, kicking them off of Shanxi, and before that it was pretty calm for a century or so." She paused to take a breath before continuing.

"On the galactic stage most races are okay with us, although many of them resent us for getting an embassy on the Citadel so quickly after first contact, but we're tougher then we look; we have the second most powerful Navy in the galaxy, not the largest or most advanced but it's still a force to be reckoned with, the Turians learnt that at Shanxi. We don't actually have a very large military, only around three per cent of the total population are actually members of the Alliance." She said, none of the Forerunners said anything but Born looked at Chant with a look that said everything.

"What about your people? It's only fair, I told you a little about mine after all." Elizabeth tried, she was doubtful of getting anything useful from them but it was worth a try.

"Our people have only two worlds where we are settled, we don't need anymore, our Navy is small, only ten ships strong and our warriors are young and inexperienced, the few Prometheans I have with me are… old and tired of war. Our people will not interfere in the galaxy, not much at least, I promised an old friend we wouldn't. We came from a galaxy far away, with no idea what we would do, what we should do. Only a few dozen thousand survived the war, so we came here, thinking it would be safe; unfortunately I fear it is not as safe as we had hoped and that our people will once again be thrown into bloody war." Born replied, he said a lot but gave away little, she could help but notice how… angry he sounded about the war his people went through, whatever happened to the Forerunners it wasn't good, not if it made someone that angry and left so few survivors.

"I think it is perhaps time we retired to our areas and considered the teachings of the Mantle, I have arranged for some… sleeping arrangements for you, Elizabeth." The lady said, interrupting the conversation before it continued.

The Forerunners left slowly, all saying farewells to the lady and Bornstellar before leaving into the maze of hallways that made up the house. The guard from earlier escorted her back to the room and left her, the room was the same only this time a bed formed from the wall as she entered, it lacked a quilt or sheet or pillow but she figured it was better than nothing.


	7. Chapter 7

**STG Monitoring probe Alpha 00124-874, Kites Nest, Harsa, 2176**

The small stealth probe left by the Salarian Special Tasks group, or STG, was designed to monitor Batarian fleet movements throughout their home system, and make sure they didn't build too many warships. However, on the the 23rd of September 2176 in the human calendar, it detected a large burst of radioactive isotopes, one's that didn't occur naturally in space for more than a few micro-seconds. It detected them for over a minute. Seconds after the isotopes disappeared from the probes sensors, it started reading contacts, five of them. Four Dreadnought sized contacts surrounding one that was too large to identify. Hegemony forces had yet to detect them. The probe re-orientated itself to face the contacts. The basic V.I controlling it couldn't possibly hope to understand the what it was seeing, a ship, 100 kilometres in length and over 20 kilometres wide and tall. It started launching ships. Thousands of them. So many that the V.I was unable to track them all. The fleet went from five ships to millions.

The new ships were only a few meters bigger than the probe, all of a sudden, before the V.I could send the report back to Sur'kesh all our bound transmissions were cut off. If it had the emotional capability and sophistication to do so, the V.I would have panicked. Unable to send the data back to the STG base on Sur'kesh, the V.I did what it's programming told it to- keep recording, it kept doing so, even as one of the small drones launched by the massive vessel altered it's course, heading straight for it. A small flash of light as the drone fired its weapons marked the end of STG stealth probe Alpha 00124-847.

**Hensa class Cruiser _Intrepid_, Kites Nest, Harsa, 2176**

the Captain of the _Intrepid_ was a blood thirsty man, but he wasn't stupid. After detecting the oncoming storm of what could only be hostile vessels he pulled up a display of the system, it showed the rest of the home defence fleet in orbit or near Kar'sharn in small blue triangles, the new contacts were represented by red triangles, the largest one was in the centre, its impossibly large mass dominating that part of the system. Thousands of the smallest contacts broke off from the fleet, disappeared in a display of radioactive isotopes and gravitational distortion- and reappeared near the Mass Relay, halting outbound Comms and destroying anything trying to leave or enter the system. A Frigate wolf-pack went to try and punch a hole through the small single ships blockading the Relay- they failed. He didn't know what happened but the five Frigates simply disappeared from his tactical display before they'd even gotten into weapons range. That wasn't a good sign.

"Helmsman, have the battle-group form up on the _Intrepid_, we're going to take out that blockade." the Captain ordered. The crewman hesitated only for a brief moment before complying with the orders. Out of the four hundred ships in-system twenty nine of them peeled off and moved along side the _Intrepid_. The thirty ships performed and inter-system jump, exiting twelve thousand kilometres from the Relay in perfect formation. The Captain of the _Intrepid_ had chosen that distance from the Relay because it was clear of any hostile contacts. Only it wasn't. The single ships had predicted their destination and _beat_ them to it. Lances of energy whipped about in the darkness, cutting through barriers and armour like tissue paper, Frigates exploded as their drive cores overloaded, peppering the black void of space with miniature blue and orange stars. One of the smaller Cruisers listed and careened in front of the _Intrepid_, half of its Starboard side missing and all the decks exposed to the vacuum.

"Fire the GARDIAN lasers,burn those fighters!" the Captain barked. The crew complied, the infra-red laser turrets turned and took aim at the small single ships. The short range lasers fired, although invisible to the human, and batarian, eye, the effects were not. Golden shields flared as the lasers hit their targets, some faltered after receiving four or five bursts of laser fire from the remaining ships. The small drones were protected with only a small amount of armour which bubbled and melted from the super-heated lasers. The deck of the _Intrepid_ rumbled as the smaller mass driver guns on the hull open fire as well. While it was almost impossible to hit something as small as a fighter with the guns it didn't matter- the swarm of single ships was so tight that the crew were feeling just a little bit claustrophobic. The metal hull groaned from the stress of moving the multi-thousand ton vessel through space, against the backwards recoil of it's guns. A large bang and rumble shook the ship and her crew, throwing them off of their feet and out of their station. Conduits overhead exploded and stations overloaded, killing any crew members unlucky enough to be too close.

"Sir! Primary Drive Core is going critical, overload in less than a minute!" a crew member shouted as the Captain stood up.

"Vent the primary coolant and pump in the back ups!" the Captain ordered. It was a risky choice, the _Intrepid _wasn't designed to vent it's coolant during combat, or pump the reserves into the primary system but if he didn't, the ship's reactor would go critical, but he ran the risk of melting the coolant system and the core overloading anyway. He had to take the risk.

"Yes sir." the crewman replied as he started working furiously to do it. In the aft cameras the Captain watched as radioactive coolant was jettisoned from the aft section, the super heated gas flash froze, destroying any single ships that had gotten too close. "Drive Core stabilising sir."

"Good, divert all power to the engines, get us through that relay!" the Captain cried out, staying in system would doom him and his crew, he would sacrifice the rest of the groups to get the _Intrepid_ out of the system and then warn the rest of the Hegemony, they would retake Harsa and burn their attackers into dust and echoes. The battered Cruiser moved forward, it's weapons silent and it's engines burning bright as it moved at best speed for the relay. It wouldn't get the chance.

**Forerunner Fortress Class Vessel _Horizon after War_**

Bornstellar watched as the Batarian Cruiser tried to push it's way through the swarm of Weapon-ships, he couldn't allow it to escape. He ordered the _Perseverance, _one of the four Dreadnought's with him to intercept the fleeing ship. The Commander of the _Perseverance _complied with little haste. Moving his vision towards the planet he ordered the three other Dreadnought's to join their weapons and power through the _Horizon after War_, not that he'd need that much power to destroy the three hundred ships left of the defence fleet. The _Vengeful, Glory of the Mantle_ and the _Penance of Ancients _started supplying the _Horizon_ with extra power and slaved their weapons systems to the Fortress-Class vessel in a brilliant display of golden, green and blue energy moving like liquid silver through space, it danced off of and around the hull of the _Horizon_. It would have been beautiful if the results weren't so destructive.

A brilliant blue and gold beam shot out from the tip of the _Horizon_'s weapon studded tail, it shot forth at near light speed and swept through the small fleet and wiped it out with a single powerful swipe. Nothing was left between the Forerunner fleet and the Batarian Home-world.

"Deploy the station above the northern pole, construct the factory in the clouds, make sure they do not locate it." Bornstellar ordered. The Warriors and Ancilla's started their jobs. They all knew they wouldn't be the ones destroying the Batarian's government or their civilization. They'd just allow them to destroy themselves. The station was placed in orbit over the northern pole, its angular oval shape dominating the sky in the Arctic circle. Manned by only a few Warriors and Lifeworkers was to act as an observation station that could deploy thousands of Weapon-ships and contained a single Sentinel Tank to deploy if necessary. The Factory would be constructed in artificially produced storm to hide it's existence and would construct thousands of Sentinel's to weaken the batarian government's standing military before the Sentinels retreated and let the Batarian's slaves finish the job.

**Forerunner Dreadnought _Perseverance_**

The Dreadnought moved away from the _Horizon _and executed a maximum burn to the fleeing ship. The distance was not so far that they'd have to perform a Slip-space jump but it wouldn't be quick either. The _Perseverance_'s reaction drive allowed it to travel at sub-luminal speeds that would have torn Mass Effect based ships apart. Racing up-star towards the batarian ship the _Perseverance _readied her weapons, blue and gold light formed in the forward weapon ports, excess plasma drifted out of the magnetic field, casting the ship in blue-green cloud. The scene of the small battle was littered with debris, batarian ships that had been sacrificed to allow the cruiser to get as far as it had were still burning, their broken hulls and lifeless decks were twisted and molten. The wreckage was still aglow. The Weapon-ships were chasing the damaged Cruiser, being kept just out of range by the increasingly inaccurate laser fire from the dwindling number of low powered laser emitters on the aft section. Scans indicated the interior temperatures were rising rapidly, quickly approaching the point at which nothing would survive.

The _Perseverance_ moved through the swarm of Weapon-ships, quickly overtaking the smaller ships. The Batarian Cruiser was just four thousand kilometres from the inter-galactic relay device. The Commander of the _Perseverance_ pushed the reactor past it's red-line to make sure that ship didn't escape. At three thousand kilometres from the enemy ship, the _Perseverance_ opened fire. Blue and gold light stuck out in multiple bursts, the already damaged ship lurched to port as it's starboard decks were exposed and consequently decompressed. More fire struck out from the _Perseverance_'s weapons, punching hole clean through the thin and weak armour, vaporizing the crew and melting metal. The reactor went critical. It's aft section started to bulge and sprouted orange and red flames before the ship was engulfed in a brilliant blue and black explosion of element zero and dark matter, spreading radiation and small amounts of debris every which way. The _Perseverance_'s shields fluttered a slight gold as they repelled the small shrapnel and radiation.

Over the course of the next months these events would repeat themselves in every Batarian system. The Forerunner fleet left no witnesses and cleared up the system's of any wreckage before moving on. A dormant relay on the periphery of Batarian space was moved to a system within the small Forerunner territory for study. They may be able to replicate it on a larger scale, and maybe Bornstellar thought, just maybe his children would meet Risers.

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**So, hope you enjoy'ed, leave a review. please? hopefully a new chapter will be up for 'The Impossible Life of Preston Cole' within the next few days along with Sam's Journey and First Contact. Hopefully.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Council ships had spent months trying to get through to Batarian systems only never to return or send back any signal, not even ones to say they arrived in Batarian space. After seven months it finally happened, they finally got through and into Batarian space. What they found was shocking, something they hadn't expected. They had expected a vast fleet of warships ready to bring war to Council space. What they found was empty planets. No trace of civilisation, no fleets, nothing. The planets weren't just abandoned but the cities and populations that had inhabited them were gone, not one brick was left.

It was like that all through Batarian space, every planet, every moon, every asteroid they'd inhabited was devoid of life. When they reached the Bahak system they found billions of people, none of them Batarians, all claiming to be ex-slaves of the Hegemony. The Council set up proper camps to sort out the billions of people. They had been sorted out by species, humans were with humans, turians with turians and so on and so on. The Alliance jumped at the chance to rescue their people, some of which had been in captivity since as early as the first slaver raids into Alliance space. Not a single ex-slave could attest to what happened, why they were released or how they got to the Bahak system. For them they just woke up there, no memories of being a slave and for some of the older slaves were shocked when they heard about humanity, a space fairing race they hadn't heard about.

Reaching Kar'sharn revealed what had happened to the Hegemony. A civil war, one so violent they had blown themselves back into the stone age. But even that didn't explain why it had taken the Council seven months to get into fringes of Batarian space, what had stopped Council ships reporting back? Where did they all go after arriving in system? The Batarians interviewed on Kar'sharn proved no help, claiming this was the first time they'd ever met another race. There was something at work in the galaxy, something in play since the attack on Elysium nine human months ago when people started reporting large beings that were taller than an Elcor on it's hind legs and stronger than an enraged Krogan. Of course those sightings coincided with the Major Victus's report of finding a tall female with features similar to that of a human. All of these events had increased tensions with the Alliance who was denying any involvement with the incidents. And for once the Council was inclined to believe them. Not even Cerberus was claiming responsibility for the actions.

XX

**Forerunner Capital World, Household of Bornstellar and Chant-to-Green**

Elizabeth had learnt a lot since coming here, she had joined the Alliance as a means to get revenge on the Batarians but with the Forerunner's claiming to be dealing with that problem she was left with no driving force in her life. That was until Chant-to-Green had taken her under her wing and started to teach Elizabeth things about life and the universe even Salarian's and Asari didn't know. She kept her body in shape but she had started to lean away from her old military lifestyle. She didn't like it much to begin with but now she was free from all her burdens.

On normal days she would be with Chant and be learning all sorts of different things with the Lifeworkers, as she had learnt to call them, but today she and one of Bornstellar's other children, a Warrior-Servant, were sparing with large wooden sticks. Something were the same in certain cultures she guessed. Dawn-of-War, or just Dawn as Elizabeth called her, was one of Bornstellar's youngest children, still in her manipular stage. During her time with them Elizabeth had learnt that Forerunners had life stages, artificially induced mutations that were brought on when they reached a certain age or position of power or in some cases, when it was absolutely necessary. A manipular was the very first stage in life, before becoming an independent member of society and marriage. They were still considered children. Dawn would still be considered a child in human space as well, at only twelve years old, but still she had Elizabeth on the back foot during these sparring matches.

Dawn was slightly shorter than Elizabeth but she was far stronger and faster. The only thing Elizabeth had going for her was practise and experience, or so she told herself as she started sweating and blocking another powerful strike aimed at her mid section. Dawn may have been stronger and faster but she was still learning, her brothers and sisters, those that were Warrior-Servant's, would spar with her and teach her but Elizabeth was human, an unknown to her, and on the battlefield an unknown could sway the tide of battle. Every Warrior-Servant was taught to learn everything about their opponents before engaging them in combat. Humans did it as well, 'If you know your enemy and know yourself you will find victory in every battle', Elizabeth had quoted.

Both girls were dimly aware of a few people watching but they carried on still. Dawn was pressing her attacks, harder more powerful each time. Elizabeth just kept blocking and blocking, staying on the defensive until Dawn made a mistake, she'd put too much power into a blow for the head and when Elizabeth ducked Dawn found herself defenceless which Elizabeth quickly capitalised on and within moments Dawn lost the match. A low murmurer came from the crowd. They hadn't expected for Dawn to loose. A loud barking laugh and slight clap of hands drew everyone's attention, it was Bornstellar, he was back from his campaign against the Batarians.

"Defend until your enemy reveals a weakness and then deliver a devastating strike. A sound tactic against a foe of equal skill." Bornstellar said. "A lesson for you all,"

More murmurers, most of the sounded positive, some not so much. It was time like this when Elizabeth wanted to stay in her room and never leave. She wasn't Forerunner, she didn't fit in and she was almost always the centre of attention whenever they left the estate, which thankfully wasn't very often.

The crowd dispersed, filtering off to go do what ever they did, leaving only Bornstellar and Dawn with Elizabeth in the open garden. Bornstellar was still in his armour, his helmet folded away as he was in the company of friends and family.

"Come now, it is time for celebration, the galaxy has been rid of an undesirable blemish while we gather our strength for what is to come."

"What's that meant to mean?" Elizabeth asked.

"Precursors have been here. They are twisted, sick and nightmarish creatures, if they've been here than something is not right." Bornstellar replied.

"How do you know something isn't right? How do you know so much about these Precursors? For that matter, what in the hell is a Precursor? Don't you mean Prothean?" Elizabeth said, she was getting angry at the way he avoided the question.

"The Precursors left their mark on this galaxy. I know so much about them because my people destroyed them, and drove the few that remained mad. The Didact spoke to one and I have his memories. I do not know of these... Protheans," Bornstellar said, he didn't bother to face her.

"What is this mark? What do you mean your people destroyed them and then drove them mad?"

"Ten million years ago in our home galaxy the Precursors decided that Forerunners were not worthy of holding the Mantle and that it was to go to our cousins. Humanity. You. Our warriors rose up in anger and wiped out the Precursors before they wiped us out. The few Precursors left evolved into a new form, a powder. The others were driven mad by what we had done. They couldn't understand why we had risen up against them, or why we would want to. Those that became dust was originally able to retake it's old forms, but over time it became corrupted and could only cause horrific diseases. The other Precursors used this dust as a means of revenge against the Forerunners.

"The Flood invaded Forerunner space and within three hundred years of war with the parasite we had all but lost our Empire. Trillions were wiped out, thousands of species we were unable to save. The rest were either catalogued for re-population or were wiped out when I activated the Halo array." Bornstellar said, Forerunners weren't very good at expressing themselves via facial features but she could tell he was sad and angry. Elizabeth couldn't blame him.

"Oh, that... sucks." Elizabeth said, unsure of what else to say. Bornstellar let our an unamused snort. "But I still have a few questions; like What happened to the Humans your familiar with? Why didn't they help you fight the Flood? And what on Earth is a Halo array?"

"The Humans didn't help because they couldn't; we removed their technology and reversed their civilisation back into it's most basic form. A mistake on our part brought about by pride and our unyielding belief that we were superior. It took centuries to defeat them, over fifty years and hundreds of thousands of warriors to take their capital. They had defeated the Flood by themselves but in the process they were forced back, into our territory and we took it as a sign of an invasion rather than seeing it as them running. A mistake we paid for dearly."

"Oh,"

"Indeed." Bornstellar agreed. "Enough of this talk. It is time for celebration, not reminiscing on the past." Bornstellar said, he led them to a small transport, a _Falco_-class shuttle he'd called it. The trip was short, like most things with Forerunners they handled things quickly and without too much fanfare, unlike the Citadel Council. When they arrived Elizabeth could see hundreds of Forerunners celebrating, not like a human would with alcohol and loud music but instead there was music, quiet, sensual, almost majestic sounding. Food and drink came in the form of stews and other such foods and flavoured waters and juices. Entertainment however was... different. They laughed at stories being passed from the old to the young. Even Bornstellar wasn't exempt from it.

"Bornstellar was a trouble maker in his younger years. Always off searching for Precursor relics and he was desperate to find the Organon, so desperate he got himself sent to an adoptive family of Miners. But did that stop him? No! He sneaked away on a transport ship to Edre-Tyrene where he made friends with a little Florian and Cha_manune_ and together they woke the Didact! But instead of running and contacting the Ecumene they travelled with him through the stars for three years before the Master Builder caught them, Bornstellar was nearly executed by the Master Builder!" Someone Elizabeth had yet to meet told the story, it was interesting to find out a little more about the large being that had saved her.

"That is enough sister. My exploits were caused by the Librarian, a _geas. _Most events in that tale were." Bornstellar said over the laughter of the crowd, this only served to cause the crowd to laugh louder. "I blame humans for this. Forerunners weren't this loud while celebrating before we celebrated with them." Bornstellar said to her in a mock whisper. The crowds laughter grew even louder.

"Trust me. This is _tame_ when compared to a party we hold." She said with a smile.

"Perhaps one day soon we will see." Bornstellar said before leaving her in the crowd where she was dragged into dances and given drinks. Despite the different pace of the party she enjoyed herself, these people knew how to celebrate without loud music and even louder drunks.


	9. Chapter 9

**Okay, here we go again! Another chapter for you all, enjoy it and leave a review!**

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**Forerunner Capital World, Forerunner Capital System**

"We must make contact with the other races of the galaxy, to help them prepare for whatever the Precursors have planned. With out us they are as good as dead." Bornstellar said, hid voice echoing through the silent council chambers.

"And make ourselves a target? Didact, secrecy is our weapon here, no one knows we are here, we are safe. Let the races of this galaxy fend for themselves." The Master Builder countered.

"The Mantle shelters all-"

"The Mantle? Do you still believe in it's teachings? After all we seen, after all we have had to do?" The Master Builder interrupted Bornstellar.

"We must not falter in it's teachings as we did before. Before we used it as means to control the other species, to make us the sole dominant power in the galaxy. Here it is different. Here there are a dozen races, all of them space faring, able to protect themselves against each other. They will need our help to defeat the Precursors test." Bornstellar said. "Your own people discovered the devices used by the races of the galaxy, these 'Mass Relays' are of Precursor origin."

"Indeed they are. They are different in their construction but they are still Precursor."

"Different? How?" The First Councillor said.

"It does not appear to be controlled, or constructed by neural physics. It uses an artificial element that when given charge can alter the mass of an object."

"An artificial element? Are you sure?"

"Yes, it can be created naturally, but it is rare. The sheer quantity being used in just one of these relays is more than we ever encountered in our home galaxy. My Builders believe that the majority of it has been artificially created in mass quantity."

"That is an uncomfortable truth. Didact, prepare our forces, we don't know when the Precursors will strike, but it will not be long I am sure. Accelerate the building of new war ships and Master Builder, make sure you give the Didact whatever he requires. For the sake of our own people." The First Councillor said. The two powerful men bowed their heads in response.

"What about contact with the races of this galaxy? Are we to just sit and hide in the shadows and only reveal ourselves when the test has already began?" Bornstellar questioned.

"Do whatever you think is necessary Didact."

"Of course." Bornstellar said before leaving. He was glad to be out of there, everyone still referred to him as the Didact. He wasn't he was just Bornstellar with the Didact's memories. A useful tool when fighting a war, but not with a delicate situation like this.

X

Elizabeth was once again being escorted around. Something that got old after a while, but the idea of going home, seeing her grandparents again after nearly a year made it worth the small embarrassment of being escorted everywhere. The ship they were travelling on was a _Harrier-_Class vessel, a little under two hundred meters it was shaped a bit like a Hammerhead shark, with a hammer shaped head and thinner body, only it's tail was more bulbous and contained powerful engines that worked in ways she couldn't even begin to understand. She'd heard a story about a Forerunner Commander during their war with the Flood who had a fleet of over seven _hundred thousand_ of these ships, along with twelve of the massive 100km long ships. A feat of engineering she couldn't get her head around.

To think the Forerunners had a fleet consisting of millions of ships, now it was down to a less than ten Capital grade ships. Although the Alliance had way more ships she doubted it would be enough to destroy a Forerunner ship. Maybe if every single ship in the Alliance fleet fired at the same time at the same spot it would do some damage, but she wasn't sure. She was sure she didn't want to find out though. Bornstellar had brought her to the bridge of the ship, it was almost empty except for a few Forerunners working on large holographic displays, similar to the one in front of Bornstellar.

"Open your arms and do not move. You will need armour if you are to survive to see your family again." Bornstellar said. His own armour seemed to power up fully, as his hands and head were covered in armour and energy.

"Oh," Was all Elizabeth said, she put her arms out to her side and stood still, waiting for the armour to attach it self to her. A feat that took nearly an hour as it had to read her and her body for reasons she didn't understand before she was finally covered head to toe in armour.

"Greetings." A small blue female popped into her head, it was one of those A.I things she knew existed, she didn't think she would have to deal with one though.

"Ahh!" Elizabeth cried out in surprise. One of the Forerunners on the bridge turned to look at her but said nothing before returning to his work. "You didn't tell me I'd have one of those A.I's in my head!"

"It will not try to kill you. Your Ancilla will do what ever it takes to keep you alive." Bornstellar replied, not taking his eyes off the screen in front of him. "Prepare for departure."

"Locking your armour." The Ancilla in her head said as the armour became locked around her, she couldn't move a muscle.

"Wait what?"

"The acceleration of the ship would kill you otherwise." The little blue lady responded in a calm voice.

"Don't you have inertial dampeners?" Elizabeth questioned.

"Yes but they would do no good at the speed we are accelerating at."

"And how fast are we going?"

"41, 970, 944.1 meters per second." The A.I responded casually.

"That-that's like ten percent the speed of light! You could out run the shell of a Dreadnought's main cannon at that speed!"

"Fourteen percent the speed of light to be precise." The Ancilla responded.

"It'll be an hour before we arrive." Bornstellar said, his armour, and her own, relaxing to allow them to move around. Elizabeth smiled, an hour, an hour before she was reunited with friends and family. After nearly a year of waiting, an hour seemed too long.

X

**Citadel Defence Fleet, Flagship, _Destiny Ascension_**

"Matriarch, unknown spacial anomaly detected four thousand kilometres from the relay's." A sensor operator called out, breaking the silent monotony of the bridge. Quickly Lidanya moved to the operators station. The display showed a large burst of radiation and gravitational distortions four thousand kilometres from the relay's. The reading however was quickly replaced with that of a ship, it was a completely unknown design, it was completely alien. It had a large thick head with a thick but narrow body and a bulbous engine section. It was Frigate sized but the design and power readings made her think twice about being in the more superior ship, that combined with it's speed, it was moving almost too fast to acknowledge. The vessel came to a stop just inside of their weapons range, far enough away that it could still use it's ridiculous speed to avoid being hit.

"We are Forerunners, we have come to seek partnership with your Council." A deep voice came from behind her, turning with her biotics ready Lidanya came face to chest with a large hologram of a species she didn't recognise. It was tall, at least four meters tall with arms and legs as thick as tree trunks and packed with muscles. She had no doubt that the being was far stronger than her. It was in full armour, it's face covered in a gold visor with a blue and gold cape coming off its shoulders.

"I am Matriarch Lidanya, Captain of the Flagship _Destiny Ascension_. As we were not expecting you it will take some time for the Council to convene in a suitable manner." Lidanya said, her mouth dry. It took all she had, nearly a thousand years of life, to keep face in front of the massive alien.

"So be it." The creature said before the hologram disappeared. She noticed the guards had drawn their weapons with the appearance of the hologram but now they stood back in their position, weapons at the ready.

"Get the Councillors on the line, they'll want to hear this." Lidanya said with a slight sigh, she cursed herself for wishing something more interesting would happen in her day. Now she had a feeling today was going to be the source of the mother of all headaches.

X

**Citadel Docks, Forerunner _Harrier-_Class ship.**

Elizabeth would have to wait, if she walked out now it could cause a political mess, at least that's what the Forerunner Life worker leading the delegation had said. She watched as Bornstellar and four Warrior-Servant Promethean's stood at the hatch, waiting for the go-ahead. The ship had docked at one of the small docks at the base of the Presdium tower, away from the bustling crowds in the wards. This way it was easier for C-Sec to enact security measures for the arrival of the new aliens. The Life worker stood in the centre of the delegation next to Bornstellar. Elizabeth had met the woman before and she was likeable, at least she seemed to be.

When the hatch opened there was still a half dozen meters between the ship and dock. The leading Promethean, a female known as Glory-of-a-far-dawn, took the first steps, the C-Sec guards watched in fascination and horror as she did, but instead of falling to her death a blue bridge formed beneath her feet, a bridge made of pure energy. She stormed across, shortly followed by the other Prometheans. The C-Sec guards tensed as the four meter tall aliens stormed across with incredible speed, wielding large weapons they had never seen before. Weapons designed to fit in the large six fingered hands of Forerunner Prometheans. Bornstellar and the Life worker moved onto the dock behind the Prometheans.

Bornstellar looked over the crowd of guards, they had blue armour and small projectile weapons that would do little to stop him or his Prometheans. One of the aliens, a Turian, stepped forward.

"I'm Executor Pallin, head of C-Sec. Myself and the guards here will escort you to the Council chambers." The Turian said.

Bornstellar said nothing as the C-Sec lead them through the station. It was definitely Precursor in origin, but the technology used to build it was primitive, especially for the Precursors. Maybe this galaxy was an earlier test bed than the one used back in the Forerunner home galaxy.

The Council chambers on the Citadel were lavishly decorated with plants and décor from the various races that inhabited the station. Bornstellar felt pity for them- for being naive enough to believe that the station had just been abandoned and left for them to inhabit. The crowd of aliens stopped and starred at the Forerunner party, a Krogan in the crowd looked ready to start a fight but was wise enough to not attack. Walking up a set of stairs the Forerunners had to be careful; the steps weren't long enough to allow Bornstellar or the other Forerunners to put their entire foot on, meaning they had to walk up the stairs on the tips of their toes.

"Sorry about that, we haven't had a race with such large feet so we haven't made stairs large enough." The Executor said.

"It is of no consequence." The Life worker said. Growth-Through-Trial-of-Change had overseen humanities reseeding in the home galaxy and was more than capable of bringing peace between the Forerunner Ecumene and Citadel Council.

Glory and the Prometheans stood at the base of the narrow platform that Bornstellar and Trial walked down. At the end of the walkway was a gap, beneath it was a glass panel which allowed those beneath to peer up at them from park like area. When the Citadel Council finally arrived, Bornstellar scoffed, these three people were meant to lead an entire galactic civilisation? He was surprised anything got done at all by these aliens.

"Welcome to the Citadel, I am Councillor Tevos and these are my compatriots, Councillor Sparatus and Councillor Valern, the Turian and Salarian representatives and I represent the Asari Republics." The blue humanoid in the centre said. Despite the platform they stood on being placed in a position above the one he was stood on Bornstellar was of equal height with them, something thy didn't expect nor appreciate.

"I am Growth-through-Trial-of-Change, a Forerunner Life worker." Trial introduced herself. Bornstellar stood forward and did the same.

"I am the Didact, Protector of the Ecumene, a full rate Warrior-Servant, a Promethean. I am in charge of the entire Forerunner Military." Bornstellar said, dazzling them with names and honorific titles. If they were in awe of him than they would be easier to manipulate into forming an alliance that favoured Forerunners. Something they weren't inclined to do by themselves.

"Surely it is dangerous to place you people's entire military in the hands of one man." Councillor Sparatus said, his voice dripping with distaste and disapproval.

"As opposed to having only three people rule an entire galactic civilisation?" Bornstellar countered causing the Turian to bristle with anger. Trial stepped in to prevent it from escalating.

"Perhaps it is best not to judge each others ways of thinking. The Didact has commanded Forerunner Warrior-Servants for twelve millennia and through the bloodiest wars in all of Forerunner history, his actions prevented our species becoming extinct, along with most of the other races in our home galaxy." Trial said, it was a small lie, the Ur-Didact had lead Forerunner Military for twelve thousand years, not Bornstellar, but the Citadel Council didn't need to know that. They didn't need to know a lot of things.

"Twelve thousand years? No one can live that long, not even Asari! And to say your from another galaxy? Preposterous! If you were so advanced we would have made contact long before now. " The Turian Councillor shouted in denial.

"It is true, Forerunners lead very long lives and yes, we are advanced enough to travel between galaxies. The earliest we managed to accomplish such a task was ten million years ago when our people wiped out our creators." Trial said, Bornstellar watched with a slight amusement as the Citadel Council stood there in shock, unable to comprehend the information they were being told.

"Interesting." Valern said, rubbing his chin in deep thought.

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible! Their ship doesn't even use Element Zero, there is no way they are that advanced!" Sparatus shouted, Tevos sighed and turned to face him.

"Did you not see how they entered the system Sparatus? They obviously have some sort of advanced Faster Than Light drive. If they are as advanced as they say they are than it is possible that they didn't want to be found." She said. Bornstellar and Trial nodded their agreement.

"If you are indeed from another galaxy how long have you inhabited ours exactly?" Valern asked, it was Bornstellar who answered, his head hung low.

"Five hundred years after a hundred years of travel from our home galaxy." He said.

"And why did you leave? Exploration perhaps?"

"No, Forerunners had interfered enough in the lives of the species from our home galaxy. We left to live peaceful lives without causing trouble for other species, however that plan is now at risk." Bornstellar said.

"At risk how so?"

"Everything you use, even this Citadel was created by our enemies, our creators." Bornstellar said, "It is not the same technology but it theirs, I can see it in the outer shell. You Mass Relay's as well, constructed by the Precursors. I believe this galaxy is a test bed of some sort, I just do not know what for." Bornstellar said, he noticed the Councillors shook their heads in disbelief.

"The Citadel and Mass Relay's were constructed by the Prothean Empire fifty thousand years ago, not by these 'Precursors', who by your own emission was wiped out ten million years prior if you are to be believed, which I do not, and furthermore these Precursors of yours, according to you, were able to create life, if they were able to that their technology would be far more powerful that the Citadel and Mass Relay's. You are nothing but some upstart race looking for attention." Sparatus said, shaking his head in dismissal.

"I am in agreement with Councillor Sparatus, while not everything he said is true I'm sure, some of the stuff you have said is ridiculous, it completely rejects every theory our peoples have come up with on the creation of life in the galaxy." Tevos said, Valern stayed silent but nodded his head in agreement.

"The Precursors had technology so old and so advanced relics have been known to be swallowed by plate tectonics and resurface again during volcanic eruptions. They had star roads stretching between worlds and connecting entire solar systems. It was with Precursor technology that our ideological enemies were able to hold out for over fifty years while I sent wave after wave of warships to assault their Capital world." Bornstellar said, his anger rising, the Didact's personality threatening to break loose.

"If they were that advanced they would not have been wiped out by your people ten million years ago." Sparatus commented, not believing.

"They didn't expect our ancient Warriors to rise up against them. They were not prepared to fight, but they got their revenge." Bornstellar replied. Trial stood still by his sides, the C-Sec guards were tense- a stark comparison to the stock still and calm Prometheans.

"This is ridiculous, we should just move on to the sanctions on becoming a member species on the Citadel." Sparatus said, waving a hand to dismiss the Forerunners.

"The Forerunner Ecumene will not bow down to your Council. We came here to form an alliance to prepare for whatever Precursors have planned." Bornstellar said, his anger fully coming to the surface. "But you three are too thick headed, too close minded to accept what we said, Forerunner military strength is at the lowest it has been since before we can remember. When the Precursors come your people will be unprepared, and you will fail to stand up to the." Bornstellar said, his calm façade replaced with the old Prometheans infamous anger. He turned and left, not willing to deal with them any more. A C-Sec officer tried to stop him at the Turian Councillor's orders. The Officer was batted aside with a simple gesture from Bornstellar's left arm and landed in heap twenty meters away, alive and unharmed but unconscious.

When more tried to prevent their departure Glory and the Prometheans readied their weapons, most officers backed off, not ready to deal with the Ecumenes most fierce Warriors. One Turian was too forceful, even opened fire on Bornstellar, only for the rounds to bounce off his shield. Glory opened fire, a blue bolt struck him, the round instantly breaking the shield and armour and passed through him, killing him instantly. A harsh reaction but it worked on keeping everyone else, from moving against them.

"An overreaction do you not think Didact?" Trial questioned as they moved through the empty walkways, evacuated from inhabitant just in case the Forerunner Warriors fired on them. C-Sec was smart enough to not try and stop them as they marched back to the Harrier.

"They are too conceited in their views and will not see us as equals. Because of that we will have to double our production efforts, the Builders will have to devote everything they have into preparing but I fear it will not be enough." Born replied easily. Entering the bridge of the Harrier he spied Elizabeth leaning against the fake transparent wall that allowed the bridge crew to see the space beyond. She was waiting for news on when she could go back and Bornstellar cursed himself that it would not be so simple any more, not for her at least. As he walked in she looked up and noticed him and moved.

"So can I go now?" She asked, excited that she would be back with her own people.

"Yes, but you cannot tell anyone what you have done, what you have seen. None of it." Born said, with a slight movement of his sixth finger he activated the ship and a device which would alter her memories, removing them from her. She wouldn't know how she got to the Citadel or what she'd been doing for an entire year.

"Sweet!" She cheered as Born swept his hand and activated the Slip-space translocation device and teleporting her to the Citadel tower, her now empty armour crumpled to ground lifelessly as it no longer had a master to protect. The Harrier pulled out of the Citadel as Born ignored the persistent communication requests from the Citadel Council. Maybe they could still work something out but not here, not now. Born piloted the Harrier away from both military and civilian traffic before jumping to Slip-space and leaving the Precursor station behind.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N; Here we go, another chapter. I will probably receive some flak for this but hey ho, it's better than what i nearly did. So, I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to leave a review. If you have something to say about the story be it a comment or an idea or a question SAY it, i can't reply to you other wise.  
**

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**Sol System, Earth, Forerunner Portal, Voi, 2558**

If Thomas Lasky had ever been nervous before the mission to Requiem before, he was down right terrified of what the _Infinity_ and the eighty strong fleet of escorts and Carriers would find when they arrived at the other end of the recently opened portal. After years of tinkering with the device the ONI scientists had discovered several interesting facts about the portal.

One; it didn't only go the Ark but to other installations as well, including another portal device located in a galaxy that wasn't in the Forerunner database, that meant there were more than likely going to be other Forerunners there but the question was of they were going to be as hostile as the Didact had been or if they were as peaceful they claimed to be.

Two; the Forerunners _had_ used it to leave the galaxy behind for humanity to look after. Although if they do meet face-to-face in a peaceful manner Tom might have more than a few words to say about the Forerunners lack of care when leaving and the results of that oversight on their part.

Three; there was a message. A message from a Forerunner called the IsoDidact and if Tom hadn't already been briefed on the Bornstellar relation archive and the testimonies from Forerunners known as Juridicals he would have been worried but he knew who the IsoDidact was, a potential ally. One humanity desperately needed if they were going to reclaim the Mantle and recover the other half of the Janus key from Dr Halsey and Jul 'Mdama.

Other than the eighty one warships, _Infinity_ included, his task force also had a small fleet of auxiliary vessels that would supply the main task force with everything from ammunition to food to repair and refit. Although if they really did encounter live and peaceful Forerunners he doubted they would need the repair and refit ships. Of course the only reason FleetCom agreed to let the _Infinity_ go was because they knew she could damage a Forerunner ship, plus they didn't know what else they were going to find once they got there.

"All ships are green and ready to go Captain." Roland, the ships A.I, reported.

"Good, give the word. We are a go." Tom said, giving a nod towards the small yellow avatar. Tom watched as the bow of the _Infinity_ entered the massive portal way above the surface of Earth. He didn't know how long the journey would take but he knew no matter what, they would be prepared. Or so he thought.

**Forerunner Capital, Capital System**

Bornstellar was in the gardens with Dawn, teaching her how to defend herself against a superior foe when it happened. The portal he had ordered to be built had activated, he frowned when it had done so. It had only one connecting point and that was on Erda-Tyrenne back in their home galaxy, but the humans would not have advanced enough to use the portal in just six hundred years, had the Flood survived? Had it taken over the galaxy and come to finish the Forerunners once and for all?

"Father?" Dawn asked, she still didn't know about the portal, or she hadn't known, she didn't know the very real danger it posed right now.

"Inside, now!" Bornstellar ordered her. She went in without hesitation. Bornstellar however did no such thing and used a translocation device to get aboard the _Horizon_ in an instant. From there he had immediately taken control of the situation, he re-orientated the _Horizon_ so that her tail was facing the exit area while all available warships started to form a blockade around the exit point of the portal transit system. On the planet Warrior-Servants and sentinels were preparing themselves for a potential invasion, when they had set up their defences they waited, and waited, and waited still. It was nearly a full day before anything exited from Slip-space and it was most definitely not a Flood controlled vessel or fleet.

First it was just one ship, one capital grade ship measuring over five and a half kilometres long, longer than most Forerunner warships. Not all of them, but most. But he hadn't expected the ship to be followed by dozens more, some were as small as a Harrier while a large portion of them were mid-sized craft. Around thirty ships were over a kilometre long, around the same size as a Dreadnought and four were over three kilometres long. Bornstellar knew that a ships size meant nothing compared to how effective it was in combat but it did mean there was more room inside the ships, more room for soldiers that could bring an unwanted fight to the new Ecumene. When the unknown vessels stopped arriving there was a little over a hundred of them, over twenty were obviously non-combat ships, with no weapons and little armour they were most likely to be support ships for the larger fleet. All the ships followed a similar design pattern; grey hexagonal and blocky. In other words they were ugly, really ugly, but the scans showed a well constructed honeycomb interior that would allow the ships to remain functional even with most of it's armour gone and most decks exposed. However the scans also showed that the engines and Slip-space drive on the largest ship in the fleet were Forerunner. They weren't reverse engineered but they had just been stuck on to the ship.

Bornstellar brought up a multitude of displays showing the various combat capable ships in the unknown fleet, each one had the same symbol painted on their flanks next to a form of script. They were, he guessed, the names of the ships but he couldn't read them. He didn't know what they said and that was not something he liked, he didn't like not knowing everything about a potential foe. Each ship's name, if the script was indeed that, started with the same four marks; a single line that formed a simple bucket shape, two parallel lines connected by a diagonal line going from the top of the left line to the bottom of the right one, another single line in a curving pattern going down, or up and a fourth symbol similar to the first one only on it's side. UNSC. Could it be something important? Or was it some sort of prefix the unknowns placed before a ships name.

"Didact, the flagship is hailing us." The _Horizon_'s Ancilla said. Bornstellar was mildly surprised, whoever they were they took the initiative to contact him, although if they were demands of surrender he would obliterate the entire fleet in front of him.

Bornstellar activated the communicator and presented an image of the largest ship's Captain in front of him and an image of him would appear in front of the unknown Captain. However, his fears of this being some sort of Flood plot or other race using Forerunner technology was put to rest when an appearance of a pale human in a grey and gold uniform appeared, he had not been expecting that. How had this happened? How had the humans become so advanced in just six hundred years? It didn't make sense.

"I'm Captain Thomas Lasky, Captain of the _Infinity_ and in charge of the human fleet here." The human said.

"Captain," Bornstellar said, trying to be polite, he didn't want to offend the human, "I am the Didact-"

"Don't you mean the IsoDidact?" the human Captain interrupted. Despite being annoyed by the interruption Bornstellar was still amused to see the human knew who he was talking to.

"What makes you so sure human?"

"Well, if your not the IsoDidact, we either killed the wrong one of you a year ago or we're screwed. Either one is not so good for us." The captain replied calmly, although what the human had just said was earth-shattering news, they had killed the Ur-Didact, had he taught them how to use the technology before being killed by them? No, that didn't make sense, the Ur-Didact would not help the humans even without the threat of the Flood. "And before you ask, he attacked _us_, we simply defended ourselves."

"I see. Seeing as you know who I am and I know whom you are, what is your purpose here?"

"Exploration for the most part however we also came here looking for you actually."

"Is that so? Is that why you brought a fleet of warships? To attack us?" Bornstellar said and to his surprised the human looked shocked at the notion.

"Attack you? No, we came here looking for you help and to see if Forerunners really did survive or if the data we found was just faulty, and the reason we brought the fleet is simple, we didn't know what we'd find and if we found you we didn't know if you'd be friendly or if you'll be like the Didact from Requiem." The human, Thomas, replied.

"Hmm, if what you say is true than perhaps a meeting in person would be better. We shall meet at these co-ordinates," Born said, sending the co-ordinates for the Council Chambers. He wouldn't call a session of the Council but merely call Chant, the Master Builder and the First Councillor, they would be the only people to meet he humans at the moment, the rest of the population can wait for the moment.

"Understood, although, I don't know what to call you because there is no way in hell will I or any member of this fleet call you the Didact, not after what happened." Thomas said and Bornstellar nodded, he needed to hear what had become of the Didact, the old one he had woken up from the Cryptum with the two ancient humans.

**UNSC _Infinity, _Forerunner world**

By the time Captain Lasky had made it down to the hanger he noticed the Master Chief and Blue team along with Crimson, Majestic and lieutenant Murphy, all ready to go by a Pelican. He didn't bother to suppress the chuckle that came at the sight of the Spartan-II's towering over the IV's who were doing their best not to show how unnerved they were, so far Crimson was better at hiding it than Majestic.

"Captain on deck!" The Chief barked, breaking the idle chit-chat between the two Spartan IV fire-teams.

"At ease Spartans, I only asked for one team to act as an escort, not three." Lasky said with an amused chuckle.

"Sir, if these are anything like the Didact from Requiem you'll need the extra support." The Chief said. The looks coming from the Spartan IV's showed that they agreed with him.

"Yeah, you do remember just one of them led an invasion of Earth and united the Covenant in just a few days right Captain?" Madsen said before getting a slap on the back of the head from Grant.

"Okay, okay, lets get this show on the road Spartans. Lieutenant Murphy, get this bird moving."

"Aye, aye Captain." The pilot said before hoping into the cockpit and starting the bird up. Lasky was flanked by the massive Spartans in a way that made him feel both safe and yet uncomfortable. Despite the severity of the mission Majestic and Crimson still messed about on the way back while the older members of Blue team sat still, only moving to go over their gear again and again.

"Whoa, Captain, you might want to check this out," Murphy said from the front. Frowning Tom moved to the cockpit and clambered into the empty copilot seat and looked, in front of them on the planet was a massive floating ocean and beyond that was their destination, a large building suspended in mid-air. It was reminiscent of the of the Library structures on the Halo's, with gold and blue lights running through it. It was beautiful and magnificent but at the same time it spoke of power and glory. Tom swallowed as they approached, he was about to make contact with Forerunners on their own turf in a peaceful manner, he just hoped it remained peaceful.

As they approached the large building sentinels surrounded the pelican and guided it to a particular landing area where two Forerunners were waiting, the more feminine looking one was stood on a device that allowed her to float inches above the ground. When they landed Blue team was the first ones out the hatch and they were quickly followed by Crimson and Majestic, the thirteen Spartans created a semi-circle around the hatch and gave an all clear soon after, if there was something waiting to ambush them than the Spartans couldn't see it which probably meant there wasn't anything there. Stepping down the ramp Lasky looked straight at the male Forerunner who was taller than the Spartans by at least a head.

"Sorry about that but the Spartans like to make sure there isn't any surprises waiting for me. Captain Tom Lasky, Captain of the _Infinity_." He said as he walked down, by the time he reached the Forerunners he was finished and awkwardly held out a hand. To his surprise the female took it without much hesitation, she grasped it gently and Tom noticed her hands were as soft as silk.

"Welcome Captain Lasky, I am Chant-to-Green, the Lifeshaper. And you have already spoken to the IsoDidact." She said, her voice was like her skin, flawless and beautiful.

"Yeah, we have. As long as you don't plan on using a Composer to turn humanity into killer robots I think everything will be fine." Tom said although judging by their looks he was sure they didn't understand. That was good, chances were they had no idea what the Didact had been up to back home.

"Yeah, one city was bad enough." He heard Thorne mumble from behind him. The Master Chief strode up and stood next to Lasky, his weapon in his hands but not up. However when he glanced the Chief's way he saw that the Spartan hero was having some sort of staring contest with the male Forerunner.

"I am not your enemy human." The IsoDidact said calmly, not phased by the impenetrable gold visor in the slightest. Despite the comment the Chief said nothing and if Tom could see through the visor he would see the Spartan glaring through narrowed eyes.

"Stand down Chief, he isn't like the one you fought on Requiem." Lasky said, despite it being an order he said it more like a friend giving advice. The second long pause between the 'yes, sir' and backing off slightly spoke volumes, it showed just how much the Chief _didn't_ trust these people and Tom couldn't blame him, after all it was the Forerunners fault for just about everything that has effected his life, including the Spartan program.

"Please, come inside the Council chambers where we might discuss everything in a more private manner and we can smooth any issues you may have." Chant said. It took everything Tom had not to say just how many issues there were. Everything from the Covenant to Requiem was their fault, inadvertently yes, but theirs non the less. Inside the chambers were two more Forerunners, one looked well groomed and elegant while the other young but tired and rather plain compared to the others. They were introduced as the Master Builder and the First Councillor respectively. The massive amphitheatre that housed the five hundred council members looked bigger and more daunting when it was as empty as it was now, however when they all stepped onto the platform at the centre it was surrounded in hardlight which glowed painfully bright before settling to show a more peaceful view of being surrounded in a nebulae in deep space, although it also made Tom feel uneasy with the idea of being stuck in space without any form of protection from the vacuum.

"I have to admit it was rather surprising to find that humanity has followed us after such a short amount of time." The First Councillor said to begin the meeting.

"Short amount of time? It's been a hundred thousand years since you fired the Halo's and defeated the Flood." Tom replied with a slight frown.

"A hundred thousand years? Impossible, we only left six hundred years ago, that's why we suspected an attack and set up defences in such a way. We were not expecting you." The IsoDidact responded before thoughtfully adding, "Unless the Precursors have something to do with it, they may have surrounded the entire galaxy within a time capsule of some sort."

"That would make sense, after all it was on one of the Halo's when we first heard about Forerunners." Tom replied, he noticed the Chief and Linda tense up slightly at the mention of the Halos. The IsoDidact, Bornstellar, noticed it as well.

"You found one of the rings? Which one?" IsoDidact asked.

"Well, we've found three now, Installations 4,5 and 3, although we blew up the installation 4 to stop the Flood escaping." Tom said, recalling the mission reports he'd looked over from when the _Pillar of Autumn_ crashed on the ring.

"And the monitor?Guilty Spark?"

"He survived and helped stop the firing of the fifth ring but he was destroyed over the Ark on the replacement Halo." The Chief said, despite the neutral tone Tom could tell that the Chief was thinking back to that day when he'd lost a very good friend.

""Why? Why did he need to stop the fifth ring firing? And why was he destroyed over the Ark?" Bornstellar said.

"To understand that we would need to start at the beginning, the formation of the Covenant. When, from what we know of it, the San 'Shyuum and Sangheili fought over how to treat Forerunner artefacts, baring in mind both races saw your kind as gods to be worshipped. Eventually they formed an alliance and started recruiting other races into this alliance, which became the Covenant. By the time they made first contact with us they had the Unggoy, Kig-yar, Yanme'e, Jiralhanae and Lekgolo. All of these races were... forced to worship what you left behind, they believed that if they found the Halo's and activated them it would allow them to transcend into godhood along side you." Tom started, using only what he knew about the formation of the Covenant which was more than most people knew about it.

"When they first made contact with us on a little farming colony called Harvest, the Prophets realised that we were, in essence, Forerunners as their machines, your machines, told them so. Because of this revelation the Prophets decided to keep it a secret so that their power and influence would not be dissolved. So, rather than become friends we were told we were an affront to their gods and we were to be wiped out. They killed nearly everyone on Harvest and hundreds of other worlds, including the planet I went to school on. They killed everyone, men, women, children. It didn't matter to them. After we lost the outer colonies it wasn't long before we lost the only Admiral who was capable of consistently beating the Covenant in space. Of course we didn't have even half the technological capability as them at the time. We were out numbered and out gunned. Over twenty billion were killed in the war and that was before they found Earth.

"However, before they reached Earth they had to go through out military stronghold, a planet we called Reach, after a months fighting there, a battle in which we lost nearly a billion people only to lose the planet any way. But when a ship escaped from Reach it ended up at Halo installation 04, the Covenant beat us there and went to work on killing everyone that made to the Halo. Personally I wasn't there but I do know that the Covenant released the Flood and we lost one of the best Navy Captains in the process. Chief, you were there, why don't you tell them exactly why you were forced to destroy the ring." Tom said, he needed a break from talking, especially about such a sore topic for every human in the room. The Chief looked at him before nodding slowly. Turning back to the Forerunners who were sitting there, taking in all the information, although they all had different emotions, Chant looked saddened, Bornstellar looked almost angry, the Master Builder mildly amused and the First Councillor looked intrigued.

"The monitor of the installation, Guilty Spark tried to get me to activate Halo before the Flood escaped and in the process wipe out all life in the galaxy. I was unable to follow through with the plan, I swore to protect the UNSC and humanity, I couldn't wipe them out so I found a different way to make sure the Flood didn't escape. I destroyed the ring." He said, his voice was leagues beneath Tom's own.

"Interesting, and you say Guilty Spark saw no other choice but to activate the ring?" Bornstellar questioned.

"So he said." The Chief replied as cool as ice, his voice never faltering despite the heavy looks being sent his way.

"And how did he end up on the fifth ring?"

"The Covenant took him there." The Chief said simply.

"After the first attack on Earth when a small Covenant fleet arrived. One of the High Prophets happened to be leading the attack but before we could attack and capture him once he punched through our orbital defences. He destroyed a city in the process and only one ship managed to follow him into slip-space." Tom said, explaining a bit further. "It turned out that the Flood had already broken loose and was trying to escape from the fifth Halo when the Covenant and UNSC found it. It was being led by a Gravemind who orchestrated an elaborate escape plan where it used the UNSC frigate to jump into the Covenant Holy City and take it over. In the middle of all this was a Covenant civil war which caused the Sangheili and Jiralhanae to fight each other. Eventually the Sangheili allied themselves with us and helped defeat the Covenant at the Ark."

"Interesting. It still does not answer why you destroyed Guilty Spark."

"Because he went rampant, killed a man for no good reason and tried to kill me. I used the replacement Halo to destroy the Ark and Flood, removing both threats at the same time." The Chief said. Tom had to give him some credit; he had never heard the Chief speak so much.

"I see, I am sorry about what you have endured because of these Covenant. We would never wish for humanity to be destroyed." Chant said, the other Forerunners at the table agreed.

"And the Didact, you mentioned him before. What exactly ensued once he was released?" Bornstellar asked.

"He united a bunch of Covenant races under his rule and use his mechanical Prometheans to wipe out humanity using the Composer. We stopped him but he managed to compose an entire city on Earth." Tom said.

"You stopped the Didact? Not even your ancient empire could manage that. How did you achieve it?" Bornstellar said, he was surprised at the revelation.

"I didn't," Tom said, "I simply used the _Infinity'_s main guns to punch a hole through the Didact's hull and the Chief here did the rest." He said, pointing at the large armoured human next to him.

"Incredible, you beat the Didact? You have the respect of the Warrior-Servant rate, although, you might also be met with some less than favourable remarks, many Warrior-Servants looked up to him as the greatest Promethean leader we've ever had." Bornstellar said, he wasn't lying either; the warrior-servant rate would have a considerable amount of respect for someone who could manage such a feat but they were also likely to treat such a man with hostility for killing a Forerunner, no matter how much his mental faculties have deteriorated.

"I had help." The Chief said simply but Madsen from Majestic couldn't keep his mouth shut forever.

"You kidding Chief? You like jumped onto a Covenant ship, hung onto it's hull through slip-space and then kicked the Covenant off Ivanov station and followed them to Earth in _fighter_. No one else could have or would have done it." He said and Tom couldn't disagree with the younger Spartan.

"As true as it is I think we're getting off topic." Tom said before turning back to the Forerunners, "You know a bit about what happened to us after you left but we don't know what happened to you."

"We simply left after we reseeded the galaxy. We arrived five hundred years ago and started to rebuild our empire here. Although we have come across some less than comfortable truths while here. We could in fact use your help in this galaxy." Bornstellar said.

"That's why we came to you, for help. We need help sorting out the Covenant races, they're too loose at the moment, any one of them could decide to wage war on humanity any day and we don't have the fleet we used to have plus we're at risk of another civil war with out own colonies."

"We will provide help if you in return help us," The First Councillor said.

"Okay, how could we possibly help you?"

"We have discovered the Precursors have been using this galaxy as some form of test bed. One of their 'test subjects' is a form of humans. However unlike you they are reliant on a primitive form of technology. You might be able to convince them to invest in more powerful technology that isn't reliant on Precursor design." Bornstellar said.

"Another human civilisation? If news of that ever reached back home it would be chaos, entire colonies would rebel, our own civilisation would crumble into the dirt." Lasky said, the Spartans seemed to agree with this assessment.

"Than don't tell them." The Master Builder said like it was the most obvious thing ever. And it was but the UNSC replied on what little trust remained with the colonies if it has any chance of keeping it all together.

Eventually Tom decided to agree, the UNSC needed the Forerunners if it wanted to survive and the Forerunners needed the USNC if everything in this new galaxy was to survive. It was one hell of a trade off. Probably the most important one ever made in human history.

XX

**Forerunner Capital, Capital World**

Bornstellar was very happy with the way things had turned out. Some of his warriors would go back to the home galaxy with the human auxiliary fleet and pacify any hostilities in the galaxy. Everything back there would be under human control one way or another while the _Infinity_ and her crew would covertly try and convince the human Systems Alliance to stop using the Precursor element in their technology. Deep down he resented how the humans were so important to the welfare of two whole galaxies while Forerunners were forced into a state of exile and could do little to make the races of the galaxy to listen to reason.

Bornstellar looked back at what they'd left behind, an entire galaxy full of advanced technology, it wasn't a surprise that a primitive alien race discovered it and decided to worship the Forerunners, but to wage a war in their name? It was an insult he could not ignore. Walking into the Prometheans war room he didn't hesitate to move to Glory-of-a-Far-Dawn at the far end working at a console and going over fleet defence patterns.

"Glory, prepare the troops under your command for departure, you'll be leaving with the human auxiliary fleet. Once in the home galaxy do what ever you need to to make sure there are no threats to human existence there. Sangheili and Jiralhanae fleets are the main threat. Scour the galaxy and unite under the humans, once that is dealt with they will be in a position more favourable to helping us here." He said. She didn't ask questions but gave a salute and went to her ship, before she even left the war room she was already communicating with her sub-commanders.

The human Captain may have agreed to help but not until his own people were secured which meant until Glory returned triumphant than he was stuck here, waiting. He just hoped that Glory would be quick in her campaign but there was no way of knowing until she did return and that could very well be years from now, which might be too late.

XX

**UNSC _Infinity_, Forerunner Capital world, Capital system**

"Roland, tell the Captain of the _Aladdin _he's clear. He has a mission to complete." Captain Lasky said.

"Aye, aye Captain, _Aladdin_ is away. Are you sure this is the right thing to do Captain? I mean should we _really_ be interfering in the affairs of another galaxy? One that might by all accounts declare war on _all of_ humanity if we are discovered." The A.I replied.

"It's a risk we have to take, as an officer of the UNSC Navy I swore to protect humanity, even these humans need protecting, especially of they're being ruled over by some alien government." Tom replied as he moved from the holo-table and straightened his uniform, he stopped just in front of the large view port just as the sun dipped below the edge of the planet, casting half of it into darkness.


End file.
